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Translated by Cardinal Newman.
St Athanasius the Great Resources Online and in Print
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29 Pages
Page 11
5. The occasion of Dionysius' writing against the Sabellians.
At that date certain of the Bishops in Pentapolis, Upper Libya, held with Sabellius. And they were so successful with their opinions that the Son of God was scarcely any longer preached in the churches. Dionysius having heard of this, as he had the charge [967] of those churches, sends men to counsel the guilty ones to cease from their error, but as they did not cease, but waxed more shameless in their impiety, he was compelled to meet their shameless conduct by writing the said letter, and to expound from the Gospels the human nature of the Saviour, in order that since those men waxed bolder in denying the Son, and in ascribing His human actions to the Father, he accordingly by demonstrating that it was the Son and not the Father that was made man for us, might persuade the ignorant persons that the Father is not a Son, and so by degrees lead them up to the true Godhead of the Son and the knowledge of the Father. This is the main subject of the letter, and this is the reason why he wrote it, by reason of those who so shamelessly had chosen to alter the true faith.
[967] See Epiphanius, Haer. lxviii. 1. The arrangement is recognised as one of old standing in the sixth canon of Nicaea, 'Let the old customs which exist in Egypt, Libya, and Pentapolis remain in force, namely that the Bishop of Alexandria should have authority over all these regions; since this is also customary for the Bishop of Rome. Likewise also at Antioch and in the other prefectures (it is decreed) that their prerogatives should be maintained to those churches.' The canon points to the natural explanation of the arrangement: the bishops of the capitals began from a very early date to exercise a loosely defined but gradually strengthening supervision over those of the rest of the province. In particular, they came to exercise a veto (and latterly more than a veto) upon the appointments to the provincial sees (ei tis choris gnomes, ib.). The bishops of Alexandria as well as Rome had even at this date acquired something of the rank of secular potentates (dunasteia, Socr. vii. 11, ede palai), but not to the extent to which it went later on (ib. 7. and supr. Apol. Ar. S:9).
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/athanasius/opinion-dionysius.asp?pg=11
